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		<title>Taxis and a radiograph &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/05-May/24.xhtml&gt;</title>
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			<h1>Taxis and a radiograph</h1>
			<p>Day 00444: Tuesday, 2016 May 24</p>
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<p>
	The taxi driver showed up in my driveway, though they didn&apos;t alert me to the fact that they&apos;d arrived.
	They didn&apos;t show up at the beginning of the expected arrival time window and I wasn&apos;t going to stare out the window until they arrived.
	They didn&apos;t show up late or anything, but it would have been nice to let me know so that they could get moving and not waste as much of their own time.
	The whole trip there, the driver was pretty quiet.
	Once we arrived, the driver left.
	Yesterday, the driver had been told to wait for me because my appointment was going to be super short as they only needed to take a single radiograph, but I guess that the driver didn&apos;t care.
	Maybe it was due in part to the fact that we arrived a bit early.
	Due to my mobile being on the fritz, I didn&apos;t have it on me, so I don&apos;t know how early we&apos;d arrived, but due to arriving during their lunch period, I needed to wait outside until their doors were reopened.
</p>
<p>
	Once in, the visit was just as quick as they said it would be.
	The dental assistant at this place mentioned something about a &quot;pano&quot;, but when I asked what was said, they just said that it was the radiograph that I was there for.
	I specifically asked if I had heard correctly and if &quot;pano&quot; stood for &quot;panoramic&quot;, and that was indeed the case.
	Why couldn&apos;t the dentist from yesterday just tell me that they wanted a panoramic radiograph? Then I&apos;d have a better idea of why I needed to visit this more distant office.
	This x-ray machine was much nicer than the one that the first dentist used as well.
	In addition to being able to capture an image of all of my teeth in a single image as was the purpose of coming in, it also didn&apos;t hurt like the small thing that the other dentist needed me to bite down on.
	I&apos;m almost certain that anything that would be needed on the small radiographs could easily be gotten from this panoramic one, so it&apos;s kind of annoying that they used the painful small one at all.
	They probably only use the small one instead in some offices for budget reasons.
</p>
<p>
	With the appointment over, I explained my situation to the receptionist and asked what to do about the taxi that left without me.
	The receptionist contacted the taxi dispatch people, but it took an hour for them to arrive, according to the taxi driver that showed up.
	I really should have brought my laptop, but I had no idea that this was going to happen; it wasn&apos;t supposed to, as the first taxi driver was told to wait.
	The driver that came to pick me up this time was a different taxi driver than last time though, and this one was much more friendly and talkative! It turns out that this driver likes to make gay jokes but is also openly gay themselves.
	Before taking me home, they picked up and dropped of another person in town, then on the way home, they explained how the taxi system works a bit.
	It seems that the insurance people refuse to pay the full fair for a second passenger if the first passenger is in the car still.
	If there is a group of several people needing an insurance-covered lift, taxi drivers are required to choose between providing decent customer service by taking them all at once or making money by taking each person one at a time.
	Employees should never have to choose between making money and providing decent service; they&apos;re either rewarded for poor service or punished for good service.
	This driver had another option though, they instead doctor the books.
	They claimed not to have picked me up until dropping the other person off, that way they would get their proper payment while still providing the expected level of service.
	Additionally, the shared ride cuts down on fossil fuel usage, so I was plenty happy to just go along with that.
	The final thing that we discussed was the needs of the taxi drivers and the needs of the taxi company.
	On one side, the taxi drivers need there to be few drivers, as it means that there are more customers per taxi, allowing the drivers to make a living.
	On the other side, the taxi drivers have to pay a fee to the taxi company just to be allowed to drive the taxis, so the company needs more drivers to cover their costs.
	There&apos;s currently someone caught in the middle, trying to balance the two needs in this company, but neither side seems to understand the other, so this person is taking heat from both sides.
	This driver does seem to understand, but the way that they explained it, this wasn&apos;t the norm.
	I&apos;d hate to have to be in opposition to my bosses.
	Even if I wasn&apos;t against driving, I don&apos;t think that I&apos;d want to be a taxi driver.
</p>
<p>
	Once I was back in town, I went back to the first dental office, where they set me up with an appointment to have teeth from one side of my mouth removed on September first at nine.
	Their plan was to remove teeth from the other side in a later appointment.
	I&apos;m not even sure if I&apos;ll be in town still though for the first appointment, so I will likely have to cancel it.
	It seems that they allow pentalty-free appointment cancellations up to but not including the final twenty-four hours before the appointment, so I&apos;ll keep the appointment until I know for sure what&apos;s going to happen.
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